Podcast Summary: "Three Really Stupid Mistakes I’m Thankful For This Thanksgiving. How About You?"

Becoming You with Suzy Welch
Date: November 25, 2025
Host: Suzy Welch, NYU Stern Professor

Episode Overview

This Thanksgiving episode flips the usual gratitude script. Instead of celebrating only successes, Suzy Welch vulnerably shares the three biggest, most “boneheaded” mistakes of her life—her college major, her first marriage, and being fired—and lays out the unexpected gifts and lessons she harvested from each. With warmth, humor, and candid self-reflection, Welch encourages listeners to see their own missteps as fuel for growth and gratitude. The episode closes with a heartfelt thanks to the people and places that are not mistakes at all.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. How Mistakes Give Us What Success Cannot [00:04]

• Suzy sets the mission: “This is a podcast ... where I’m going to talk about the really big mistakes that I made that I’m grateful for. Okay, I am going to talk about gratitude, but I’m talking about all the ding dong, boneheaded mistakes I made, three to be exact...” (00:06)
• She clarifies that “Becoming You” is fundamentally about making fewer mistakes—but if you do make them, “it’s really good to learn from them.” (01:54)

2. Mistake #1: Majoring in Fine Arts at Harvard [02:30–15:51]

Story: As a bright, ambitious student, Suzy chose her college major in a haphazard, easy-A fashion—settling on Fine Arts (Japanese Edo period art specifically), a field she now admits she had little passion for and no intentions to pursue.

Key Points & Lessons:

• Family background offered little guidance—her parents were “artists and hippies,” the idea of a career “not a concept they wrapped their heads around.” (04:53)
• She specialized in Japanese Edo period art, and later jokes, “I retained zero of it … I had to go to ChatGPT today, and I typed in Japanese art from the Edo period. Tell me about it.” (13:24)
• Felt “what am I doing?” throughout college but lacked the words or courage to redirect.

What She Gained:

• Self-education as a lifelong habit:
  “Losing the chance to really have the education that was handed to me on a platter made me a self educator. And this has helped me so much in my life.” (15:02)
• Never squandering real opportunities:
  “It sort of made me a person that never ever wanders an incredible opportunity that's handed to you.” (16:34)
• The determination to never be unprepared again, later carrying that drive through to graduate school and onto her children.

Notable Quote:
“I, hot mess, studied the wrong thing for four years. ... But one that I’m super grateful for.” (17:30)

3. Mistake #2: Her “Terrible” First Marriage [17:32–29:43]

Story: Suzy details her marriage to Eric, a relationship begun during adolescence and entered into mainly out of comfort and psychological safety rather than shared values. She calls it “a dumb decision for both of us,” but one she is profoundly grateful for.

Key Points & Lessons:

• The true glue was “an inordinate love of an album by Brian Ferry called Boys and Girls.” (19:01)
• Reflects on the psychological need for acceptance: “We both came from highly unusual families ... and we did not have to explain our families to each other.”
• Admits the marriage was “enormously painful for both of us,” but underscores two huge gifts.

What She Gained:

• Their four children:
  “They wouldn’t have been our children who had to be born because the world is so much better with them. ... I’m glad because I got those children. So that’s the, I’d do it again. Don’t be scared, Eric and Siobhan. I wouldn’t really do it again, but I would go through the pain again for sure.” (22:58)
• A deep lesson in forgiveness:
  “The restoration of our friendship, our strong friendship, has taught me about forgiveness and the freeing, liberating, empowering joy of forgiveness.” (25:34)
  “Let it go, let it go, let it go. Sooner is better than later.” (27:48)
• She and Eric, along with his partner, remain “one big happy family” and celebrate holidays together.

Notable Quotes:

• “I had to forgive myself for making a mistake that I ... I mean, in the car ride to the church, I said to my sisters, I know I’m making a mistake. And I went ahead and made it anyway.” (25:43)
• “If you’re holding a grudge at this moment or you’re mad at somebody who hurt you, you’re hurting yourself. ... Forgive, let go and forget. Okay? Some people say, well, I’ll forgive, but I’ll never forget. I forgot also. I forget all the bad times. Why remember them.” (27:54)

4. Mistake #3: Getting Fired Publicly [29:45–38:42]

Story: In 2001, Suzy was fired from Harvard Business Review after disclosing a relationship with Jack Welch, whom she’d just interviewed. The firing was public and humiliating, covered in the press and discussed on shock radio.

Key Points & Lessons:

• She describes the period as “terrible embarrassment” and “devastating,” recalling, “I cried so much. I told Jack I’d never get work again. I was...felt so disgraced.” (31:14)
• The media portrayed it as a “fling,” which deeply offended her.

What She Gained:

• Unshakeable inner strength and risk tolerance:
  “I learned one of the most important lessons of my life, which is that getting fired or failing in any way does not actually kill you.” (32:29)
• Humanization and humility:
  “It resulted in people liking me better because I had more humanity.”
• A stronger sense of courage:
  “Almost nothing scares me now, because between that and losing my husband ... you can fight through what the slings and arrows, the outrageous slings and arrows that are life.” (39:05)

Notable Quotes:

• “Nobody wants to get fired. It really hurts. ... But I’m happy it happened.” (32:17)
• “You have so much more courage. So I’m not sorry it happened. Of course, I’d like some of the ugliness of it left out, but I think it had to be that ugly for me to learn how strong I was.” (36:57)
• “Just understand that you’ve got inner strength and inner power that will be there when you call for it.” (39:24)

5. Suzy’s Non-Mistake Gratitudes [39:35–47:56]

Suzy transitions from her instructive mistakes to four things she’s unambiguously grateful for, using this section to lift up her team and community.

a. NYU and the Becoming You Class [40:04]

• “The number one thing on my list is NYU. ... Thank you, NYU, for letting me be me and for letting me try to be a teacher the way I’m a teacher.” (40:55)
• Appreciates the university's openness and support for innovation.

b. The Becoming You Team [41:33]

• Names every team member and their roles—operations, social, product & tech, engineering, writing, UI/UX, partnerships, research, and podcast guest coordination.
• “If you’ve ever liked a podcast that is 20% because of me and 80% because of Eliza Zinn.” (43:14)

c. Her Dogs [46:05]

• “Then very quickly, you know, I’m thankful for my dogs, you know, I am Sir Audrey au Pierre.”

d. The Listeners [46:31]

• “Very sincerely, I want to thank you. I want to thank the listeners of this podcast. ... I get so much incredible love from you. I love you back. I love hearing from you. I love your reactions to this podcast.” (46:39)
• “Please keep listening. I love being in community with you. I love doing life with you.” (47:12)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On learning from mistakes:
  “I’m not going to tell you to go make mistakes. ... But if you’re going to make them, and you are, because people are people and life happens, it’s really good to learn from them.” (01:38)

• On forgiving and moving forward:
  “If you’re holding some kind of feeling in your heart and you can’t let it go, let me just beseech you to learn this lesson along with me. How important it is to forgive.” (28:47)

• On resilience after failure:
  “Getting fired ultimately resulted in me having so much courage and so much more comfort with risk ... what’s the worst thing that could happen? I could get fired publicly. Well, guess what? That happened. And you know what it resulted in? It resulted in people liking me better because I had more humanity.” (33:05)

• On her team:
  “I want to thank the team that makes Becoming You possible. I mean, I do not do this alone. I couldn’t do this alone. I really could not do this alone.” (41:34)

• To listeners:
  “I want to thank the listeners of this podcast. This podcast started out as a whim ... I get so much incredible love from you. I love you back. I love hearing from you. I love your reactions to this podcast. ... I look forward to remaining grateful to you for as long as we’re both in this together. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.” (46:35, 47:56)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:04 – Episode intro and framing: mistakes as gifts
• 02:30 – Mistake #1: Majoring in Fine Arts at Harvard
• 17:32 – Mistake #2: Her first marriage and the power of forgiveness
• 29:45 – Mistake #3: Being fired publicly and finding courage
• 39:35 – Segue to things she’s unambiguously grateful for
  • 40:04 – NYU and her class
  • 41:33 – The Becoming You team
  • 46:05 – Her dogs
  • 46:31 – Podcast listeners and community
• 47:56 – Thanksgiving wishes and closing

Tone and Style

Suzy Welch’s delivery is irreverent, candid, vulnerable, and warm, laced with humor even when recounting pain and regret. She normalizes mistakes and reframes them as life’s truest teachers, creating space for listeners to reflect with less shame and more gratitude.

Summary Takeaways

Suzy Welch’s Thanksgiving special is as much a love letter to learning the hard way as it is a celebration of personal and professional gratitude. By sharing the real, messy, and painful stories of her three biggest mistakes, she demonstrates:

• The lifelong value of self-education and not taking opportunities for granted
• How forgiveness can transform pain and maintain important relationships
• That failure, even public and humiliating, is survivable and can deepen our courage and humanity

She closes by recognizing the people, pets, and listeners who make her journey worthwhile—affirming that gratitude doesn’t shy away from the mess. Instead, it transforms it.

For anyone who wonders if they’re the only one screwing up their life: you’re not alone, you’re not doomed, and you just might be one gratitude list away from peace.